NEW BERLIN – To celebrate the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation’s 20th-year anniversary, the non-profit group is holding a once in a decade event this Saturday to help fund Golden’s artist-in-residency program.

Every year, the foundation hosts about 20 visiting artists selected by an independent committee made up of alternating museum directors, curators and other art-world professionals, said foundation program director, Emma Golden.

The selected artists are offered a one-month stay in New Berlin at a special farmhouse residence where they are given access to the vast array of paints and materials available at the Golden Artist Colors headquarters.

Those artists can then, in-turn, donate some work back to the foundation, which is sold to help support other future artists. More than 160 different artists donated their work over the last several years to make this Saturday’s art auction benefit possible, said Golden.

The auction is actually three different auctions. There is an on-going online auction that began July 1. Saturday, there will be a silent auction in the loft gallery from 4:30 to 6:45 p.m., and a live auction in Golden’s upper café gallery, from 6:45 until 8 p.m.

Tickets for the charity are $55 at the door, and many of the works up for auction are valued at over a $1,000. There will be prize drawings and an open bar.

The galleries at Golden Artist, located at 188 Bell Road, New Berlin, are free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.

“You have amazing access to the resources of the Golden Artist paint,” said Leigh Yardley, who was offered a stay at the art residency in 2015.

Yardley has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Lesley University, College of Art and Design in Cambridge Massachusetts. She lives just outside Hamilton, and is an adjunct instructor of art at Morrisville State College. She has been an exhibiting artist since 1994.

Yardley explained many artists struggle with costs and access to materials.